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Topic: Kingdom of Orentia (Read 13328 times)

For right now, I have access to this website again. So, I will start preparing to post new material here soon. If anyone could offer things I should post about to come closer to completing the setting that would be helpful.

Since this world has rather low technology and literacy, there needs to be a simple way to collect taxes...

The Kingdom of OrentiaGate taxes: When someone enters a town, they are charged a small fee that helps to maintain the guards and the defenses of the town.

Property taxes: Everyone who lives in a town is charged a small fee for every square yard they own and every square yard their buildings cover (I need to create my own units of measure.)Â This money supports the military and government projects.

Religious Tithe: Everyone is required to attend the weekly trials in the local temple of St. Cuthbert.Â They are then charged a fee and asked to pay more money in the from of an offering to their god.Â This money supports the temples and the military.

The Society of LorenSince the Society is a loss collection of city states, each city has it own set of taxes.Â Below is a list of some of these.

The Kingdom of ThalasGate taxes: When someone enters a town, they are charged a small fee that helps to maintain the guards and the defenses of the town.

Property taxes: Everyone who lives in a town is charged a small fee for every square yard they own and every square yard their buildings cover (I need to create my own units of measure.)

Inventory taxes: The owners of stores pay a tax on every item in their establishments monthly.Â This has caused most store owners to not carry much inventory, which often results in delays in purchasing products.Â This law is being discussed currently in the congress because it has caused problems for the economy.

The Peoples of GromNo taxes are collected here.

(thanks to my friend Nathan for offering me the general idea for this post and many specific ideas about taxes in low tech societies.)

This class was inspired because of a reaccuring problem in my D&D games. In order for human and other PC race NPC's to be able to stand up to the players, they had to be outfitted really well with magical equipment. Then, when(if) the players killed the NPC and claimed their goods they become even more powerful. This class is designed to give the players a tough fight against normal races without giving additional money after the fight. Having this option allows me to have easier control of the money they have to prepare for battle. This class is only for NPC's.

The Vile MonkPrerequisites: In order to become a vile monk, the character must have one class in monk and swear undying loyalty and devotion to a powerful evil deity or demigod in a dark ritual that binds their souls to their patron. They must also donate all wealth to this outsider's temples or organization. If the outsider does not have said organizations, then the money must be used to subvert the organizations of the outsider's enemies. Of course the character must have an evil alignment themselves.

Benefits: In exchange for selling their souls and giving away all their wealth, they receive power from their patron as divine bonuses.

Costs: The character who takes this template is not longer their own person. They have no free will, no future other than to die for their patron. They will never own any material thing in this world.

In each major continent of the area and within a large archipeligo, an elemental creature with powerful divination natural abilities resides. These powerful beings are a natural part of this world. If they are destroyed they respawn in another location that contains the purest sample of their own element. Because many beings seek their assistance as oracles, they protect themselves using a series of illusions and puzzles. Only a mix of very capable people has a hope of reaching their secluded homes. They also demand some form of payment for their services in the form of goods or deeds. Each of these four beings, sisters really, lives to protect the natural world and seek balance in all things. They are the epitome of the true neutral alignment.

Earth elemental seer's puzzle In the mountains of LorenThis elemental has used her illusion spells to create a series of animals that speak riddles and leads the players through a complicated maze through very tall hedges. When each riddle is solved correctly, the animal leads the players to the next animal in the series. If the riddle is answered incorrectly, the animal leads them to the beginning of the maze. At the end of the maze is a final riddle that connects all the animals previously seen into a single short, but very challenging riddle.

Air elemental seer's puzzle In the mountains between Orentia and ThalasThis elemental protects herself creating a series of puzzles through a series of underground rooms each requiring the players to solve the puzzle in order to continue through the dungeon. There are a total of twelve puzzles, six of these are designed to require a certain sets of skills or abilities. This was designed to honor the party that St. Cuthbert lead many centuries in the past.

Fire elemental seer's puzzle Below the dwarven city of ColdpoolThis elemental has created with help of her constructs a series of deadly puzzles and traps that all use fire is some way. From jumping from platform to platform over a river lava, to following the correct series of letters to avoid the release of fireballs, the players with be tested greatly.

Water elemental seer's puzzle On one island within the enchanted isles. This elemental has been captured and turned by Sarokheyl, but her series of underwater puzzles through a coral castle still functions. These puzzles employ all three dimensions to confuse and confound the players attempts to find the way through.

The way of evilThrough his own divinations, Sarokheyl has determined a ritual involving any one of these elemental seers and an evil artifact can cause the seer to become evil and tranfer their powers to himself. Using this technique, Sarokheyl has already turned the elemental seer of water and is using her abilities to reck havoc for the alliance on the sea. Once Sarokheyl is able to find and turn all four elemental seers he will complete the ritual and absorb within himself their powers of divination. This will add the knowledge domain and secrets to his portfolio.

I am still here once in a while, when I have access to a computer. My school access was once again shut down. I am not sure still as to how to use the new pages. I have one submission in the NPC section though... Thanks for the compliment!

It has been a while since I've posted, but now that I was finally able to purchase my own computer...

Ok, here is an update... My next posting will be a request for help to prepare the next part of the story.

My group has been playing my D&D 3.5 campaign (this campaign is this setting forge actually) for over two years. They all started at level 1 and are now level 19.The group of six players consisting of: a wizard, a barbarian, a cleric, a ranger, a rogue, and a fighter have completed the following sections of my campaign.

Kingdom of Orentia: (over eight months) Stopped Death's Queen, a true necromancer who was sending her undead minions and strangely clothed elves that seemed to be similar to monks, but more powerful. This point was offered as a closing to the campaign, since they chose to continue the story, they learned of the leaders of the hobgoblin nation. Since they decided to go on with the story they discovered that Death?s Queen was receiving orders from the two main leaders of the Hobgoblin nation. The group decided to seek information about what is going on and they eventually sought out a known see. Before they could speak with her they had to first complete a very complicated and difficult riddle of illusions before having to very carefully role play and use well worded diplomacy to earn her assistance. They learn that the hobgoblin nation is united under a single rule and that their army is already on its way to attack the Kingdom. She also tells them that things are being hidden from her and that she would need time to discover the truth of things. She bids them to return when she calls for them.Peoples of Grom: (about three months) A great and powerful mystic ceremony was carried out to cause the hobgoblins, the giants, and many other races in the lands to the north of Orentia to commit their lives to Grom and the war he has called for. The party, now a part of the army as a strike team, fought a war where they would deal with a group of enemies while being described the greater war happening around them. At any one time they would fight a leader, a second, a specialist (like a cleric) and about six to twelve low level soldiers. At the end of the battle they were shown a battle board summarizing all of the missions they are either offered or that present themselves in the area they were currently at in the field. These missions were classified according to difficulty. After about three gaming sessions of intense and constant fighting, the war was going well for the Kingdom of Orentia partly due to the group's efforts. It was at this point that the group was confronted by a large black winged creature with the grotesque body of a half-black dragon/ogre mage: Grom had come to visit. After a very long and entertaining battle, Grom fell and the hobgoblin nation retreated. This was another point where the group had a choice of this being the end or they could continue to the next part of the story. They chose to continue, so Grom was actually a hollow construct filled with strange green magical fluid that looked and acted like his acidic green blood when they were fighting him. From the hollow form a sinister laugh emanated. From this they knew there was more going on and they chose to wait for the seer?s call. Because of their decisive action in the war, the group was rewarded the status of nobles in Orentia and were given the fief of Highwatch Keep which overlooked the pass leading from the Hobgoblins. This site was the ancient location of the northern most fortresses of the kingdom centuries ago, but was nearly abandoned due to cost. A small outpost has held watch here since then. The group was given money and resources to found a small city and to build a fortress of their own design (using pieces of paper cut out to represent each type of stronghold space). They spent about seven hours of game time putting their fortress and city together and had a great time. They also had the task of requesting the various people they have meet and learned to respect to come with them as freemen and women as landholders, merchants, servants, etc. Once this task was complete, they received a call from the seer.

The six elements: At the seer?s call the heroes teleported to her lair. There she, her cohort and servants are waiting for them. She is obviously agitated. The heroes learn that something is corrupting her sisters. The six elemental seers are in danger of being turned to serve a great unknown evil. She knows that at least two of her sisters are already corrupted and that this evil is heading this way to corrupt her. Her sight can tell her no more; the future is turning dark... The seers are immortals filled with the power of the elements intimately connected to all of creation, if all seers are turned evil unheard-of horror will result. They must find all of her sisters and remove their temporary form from where it was currently found. Their forms would arise uncorrupted at some place where their element was most pure. He sister of fire is below a city around an ancient volcano. Her sister of air resides high about the great dragon graveyard (she warns them to not venture in the graveyard any time soon, for they were not ready yet). Her sister of earth is held captive deep in the earth on the Isle of Loren, by strange being of a different time and place. Her sister of light hides among the ruins of the ancient hobgoblin capital beyond the barbarian lands somewhere within the great desert. And the last sister, the seer of dark and cold lies within a great iceberg that moves at a creature?s command. At this point her agitation grows and then she motioned her servants and cohorts to leave in preparation for the coming agents of evil and then makes a request/command of the heroes. She orders them to kill her, so that her essence will reappear safely in some other place after a certain amount of time just like they must do for her sisters. At their hesitation, she gathers arcane and mystical energy threatening them with her power unless they did as she has said. Her last words where, ?Remove yourselves from here or die! Great Evil comes...? After the deed was completed they began to complete their new quest.

The element of light: (about three months) The party was led to the barbarian lands by their group?s barbarian. A great session of meaningful role playing occurred where they befriended some and made enemies of others. The barbarian tribes were placed outside of the Kingdom both as a concession for their chaotic ways, but also for a purpose. At regular intervals undead come walking out the desert and it is their task to watch and guard the Kingdom from the undead hordes until one day their true King will come and stop the horde forever. After fighting two or three waves of shambling undead the group found the ruins of the ancient capital. They also were hit by a wave of black/purple energy coming from the east and behind this wave came more undead up from the ground. These undead were obviously hobgoblins from when the capital was destroyed or from the many wars that occurred in the area. Locating the center of the waves of energy they defeated a being of great and terrible power and then found the seer of light hiding within one of the ruined buildings.

The element of fire: (about three months) The group spent some time learning about the city of dwarves living around the dead volcano and soon discovered that things were not as they should be. They assisted the nobles and the rest of citizens in removing a false king from power and then discovered that there was a coven of those strangely dressed elves known as Vile Monks living below the city. Deciding to surprise them they use their powers of divination to find a room within their training facility, but too late discover it was a clever trap. Apparently the fire seer is also corrupted. They are captured and slated to be sacrificed in a ceremony to awaken the volcano killing thousands of innocent citizens. They are rescued by some of the new friends they made and protecting themselves in every way they know from divination magic proceed to defeat the leaders of the coven, and find and ?remove? the seer of fire. Having learned of the happenings below their city the dwarves send their army and remove the members of the coven permanently.

The element of dark and cold: (about four months) The group heads north in the lands used centuries ago as a penal colony. Six-Towns is just a lose association of six towns that trade and try to scratch a living in the hostile cold of the north. Once again getting to know people and helping the people solve some problems they make friends and are able to learn of a iceberg from which evil creatures raid all along the north coasts. Eventually they find the iceberg and venture in a direction that leads them to the cave of a white dragon. They almost die before finally taking down the great beast. (Unbeknownst to them the dragon was one of the leaders of the iceberg community.) They venture out of the cave and find a great city with two imposing structures. The streets are oddly empty... Despite everything I do suggesting caution cautionsly as not to lead them by the nose they abruptly announce that they want to teleport into the middle of a certain large building. At that very moment everyone (hence the empty streets) was at a town hall meeting to discuss what to do about one of their dead leaders?the dragon. So, they teleport into the middle of over 1000 creatures with about fifteen high level beings right around them. At that moment I tell my group to go get something to eat and come back in an hour. After that they returned and we fought for six hours of game time through ten rounds of ?real time?. They wisely choose their first targets and being nice giving them the surprise round are able to remove two very dangerous beings at the outset. This is followed by the barbarian rolling a natural 20 on an intimidate check, which I allow to scare everyone away that was level 5 or lower. When it was all said and done they were the last standing. Shortly thereafter they explore the island loot most of what was there and then ?remove? the seer of cold and dark.

The element of air: This encounter was rather simple. They found the location of the dragon graveyard (an island way out in the ocean). They then fly high above it and find the seer being protected by air elementals. She for some reason decides to fight them, but does not survive long.

The element of earth: The group is currently here. One last seer to take out. This is corrupted and being held by the first and only colony of mind flayers. They will also get involved with the elven nation of Loren who is currently under attack by apparently nature, but this is just a side event. The elf war is already worked out and ready to go. I need to work on the mind flayer part.

Please read my next post and help me out in preparing a challenging, but not impossible section of my campaign for a very committed, creative, and fun group of guys. They have kept me on my toes and have surprised me many times. I am having trouble keeping ahead of them.

In the last part of this section of my campaign, the group needs to find and "free" the final elemental seer. The seer has been corrupted and turned evil and is being held captive in the first and only Mind Flayer colony on this plane.

My goals:I want this set of encounters to be challenging but not impossibleI want to be able to deal with the cleric and wizard playercharacters that keeps them on their toes but does not render them useless.I need to somehow negate their teleportation and stone shape spells in a way that makes sense.I would like this to last three or four six hour gaming sessions. I will also protect from divination magic

My players:The barbarian likes to fight multiple enemies at once.The wizard likes to use his spells to the best of his ability and often confounds me with his creativity (which is a good thing!).The cleric likes to be the pseudo group leader without "really" leading and use his spells in a way similar to the wizard.The rogue is the best role player I have ever seen and I want to include lots of opportunities for him to shine.The ranger is still learning how to play and make a character that grows in power and in characterization. He seems to like combat the best, but often does not understand tactics as well as a ranger would need too.The fighter is often the group leader and seems to enjoy watching the others do well and have fun. He is a great asset to the group as a whole. With this in mind, the fighter has not had very many opportunities to shine himself in quite a while, so I want to engineer some opportunities for him to do so.

General Outline:The players must find one of the entrances into the underdark that lead to the mind flayer lair. This should involve some detective work since the mind flayers are very good hiding their tracks and removing evidence. This will involve interacting with townspeople, solving local problems, etc. However, use of divination magic will make this easier. Once the entrance is found they will need to fight their way through the underdark for about 2 miles to find the thrall encampment that masquerades as a deep gnome village. Making their way through and down past the deep gnomes they will then need to make it through the thrall barracks. There will be some mind flayers assisting the thralls. After this they will need to fight through the central chamber, the temple, and lastly(perhaps) the elder brain itself whose brain folds are being massaged by the earth seer.